The fluidity of the psychological contract during times of change

Abstract

Organisations were forced to let employees work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, a hybrid work environment became the new normal. This paper sets forth to determine how an abrupt transition into a hybrid work environment altered employee’s psychological contracts in terms of employee’s perceptions of trust, work life balance and perceived organisational support. A qualitative study was conducted on a small government institution that used a hybrid work environment. Semi-structure interviews were conducted with 12 employees. The findings of the study revealed that due to an increase in formol monitoring and control activities moving into a hybrid work environment, as well as the withholding of information arising from no longer having impromptu meetings with teams and information getting lost, respondents did experience a decrease in their perception of trust. The study further revealed that respondents experienced increased strain working from home resulting in an increased work to life conflict. Lastly the study found that the organisation did not meet the employee’s perception of perceived organisational support. The overall findings suggest that a sudden change in the working environment can alter the psychological contract and lead to psychological contract breach.